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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29432391">Red is for Love</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Listentothelittlebird/pseuds/Listentothelittlebird'>Listentothelittlebird</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Code Bat [34]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Batfamily (DCU), Cultural References, Fluff, Gen, Happy Lunar New Year!, Let Cass appreciate her Asian roots and time in Hong Kong!, Not Canon Compliant, Self-Indulgent, basically everyone gets together to give Cass a nice day</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 14:07:55</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,695</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29432391</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Listentothelittlebird/pseuds/Listentothelittlebird</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Cass remembers the vibrancy of Lunar New Year in Hong Kong. She remembers streets lined with bright red lanterns, crowded streets and the bustling of thousands as they gathered for reunion meals with family. </p>
<p>The New Year was definitely different in Gotham, but her family made the best of it for her. </p>
<p>(Lunar New Year, or Chinese New Year, is celebrated based off the Chinese calendar, celebrating the start of the year and the coming of Spring.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Cassandra Cain &amp; Everyone</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Code Bat [34]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1964452</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>309</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Red is for Love</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Sorry, not a Valentine's fic, just more family feels XD</p>
<p>This was just a fun little thing I wanted to write for the occasion :)) </p>
<p>Usually, the Lunar New Year is a whole big deal - traffic in and out of China is insane during this time, because everyone's going home for their extended family gatherings. There's a whole thing about visiting several houses of relatives to "Bai Nian" (拜年, season's greetings, essentially), as well - but what with the virus, it's been really different. To anyone who's missing their normal reunions, 加油*! Hopefully, next year it'll be possible :D</p>
<p>This year is the Year of the Ox - the "niu" year (see the pun?)</p>
<p>牛(<em>niu</em>) = Ox<br/>新年快乐(<em>xin nian kuai le</em>) = Happy new year, with "new" being 新(<em>xin</em>)<br/>弟弟(<em>dai dai</em>) = younger brother<br/>*加油(<em>jia you</em>) = add oil, phrase of encouragement, Chinese equivalent of "Fighting!"</p>
<p><em>Dai Dai</em> is using Cantonese pronunciation, the rest are using Mandarin pronunciations!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“So,” Tim clapped his hands together, “Have any idea why we’re here, guys?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You have a stupid idea and you need help?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“The old man did something and you want revenge?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Tt. You ran out of coffee and are in the midst of identifying the culprit?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I hope it’s none of those things. You’re terrifying when you want something.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You wanna make public those blackmail shots of us?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“No, no and- wait, who told you?” Tim narrowed his eyes at Steph, who smiled innocently. “Babs, I’m guessing. Well, no. Not yet, anyway.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Blackmail shots?” Dick piped up with a frown, “You mean Jason and my Robin photos?” </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“He took new ones,” Steph offered happily. Duke blinked and pointed to himself in question, Steph nodding eagerly. Tim narrowed his eyes, “Who told you <em>that</em>?” He had quietly updated his photos more recently, making sure to collect a library for Duke himself. Babs must have been really unsubtle with where she left his traded photos.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Tim sighed and put his thoughts away, flailing his arms in the air, “Side-tracked, side-tracked, I’ll talk about that another day. Right now, we’re here to give Cass a new year’s surprise.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“New year’s day was a month ago,” Damian pointed out. “<em>Lunar</em> new year,” Tim added, watching as realisation dawned on his siblings’ faces, “Bruce is in on it, too, he’s just keeping Cass company so that we can have this discussion. I have a few ideas on how to go about this.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>-</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Cass lived on her own in Hong Kong. She still made a few friends, though, and it was through them that she got to experience the atmosphere that came with the Lunar New Year. It was more than just walking through the streets and admiring the bright red lanterns slung across the shophouses - she was invited to her friend’s house, and the sheer size of the family gathering, coupled with the vibrant atmosphere and bright red decoration, was something hard to forget.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She awoke on the first day of the new year with messages of greetings and blessings from her friends in Hong Kong. She returned the messages and wandered out of her room in the Manor.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There was some noise coming from the dining room. She could hear Alfred and Jason conversing, louder than usual, the shifting of baking trays and other metallic objects more intentional than anything. She wandered curiously into the room and stopped short, blinking.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There were three baking trays, a bowl of bright orange sticky filling, and a large mound of dough. Small balls of dough were neatly filling up one of the trays. Alfred announced that he would leave Jason in charge of the trays with a pat to his shoulder and a kind smile directed at Cass. Alfred was wearing his normal butler’s outfit, but Jason had swapped his usually dull-coloured or white t-shirts for a bright red shirt.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Jason had a nervous tension to his body even as he looked up to grin lazily at her.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Hey, Cass,” he greeted, and gestured lamely to the table, “Alfie and I are tryna make pineapple tarts.” He scrunched up his nose, tensing further, “Ah, shit, I realise we didn’t even ask if you liked them. Uh, do you?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Cass beamed. “Yep,” she chirped, slipping into a chair beside her brother and tugging at the lump of dough, “They’re sweet. Filling usually... can be seen, though. Exposed?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Exposed,” Jason confirmed, relaxing and smiled sheepishly, “Those ones are standard, but they’re harder to do. Covering the whole filling with a dough ball makes it less likely to get burnt.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Cass hummed, eyeing Jason as he made one tart, before attempting to mould one herself. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>-</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Jason sent Cass to go look for a book for him from the library, while he kept watch on the trays in the oven. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Did I mess it up?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“No, no, I think it looks fine. Oh, wait- you snipped that part off.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Oh. Well, this is going on the wall, right? We can just tape over it. No one’ll notice.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Cass peeked into the library to find Dick and Steph bent over a table, red paper littering the floor around them. Steph was wearing a cheongsam, and Dick was wearing a striped shirt that looked closer to pink than red. She made it to just behind Steph’s shoulder before she jerked and swivelled to face Cass with wide eyes and a nervous laugh.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Oh! Dammit, you finished with the tarts, already?” Steph huffed and pouted at the mess they had made of the coffee table before them. In the middle were a few dozen red paper “lanterns”. Dick waved with a smile, the lantern in his hand flailing with its snipped strip. “We wanted to make more before you came.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Cass giggled and plopped herself on the floor next to the table, taking a discarded pair of scissors and making grabby hands at the untouched red paper at the other end of the table. She remembered how to make these - it was quite simple, and she had hung her own around her apartment in Hong Kong. Dick must have remembered them from when he had visited her near the New Year.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They made a few more before they strung them together and went to hang them in their living room, childishly stretching the string of lanterns between them as they walked. Cass smiled softly at the new large vase in the corner of the room. The pussy willows in the vase were already flowering, the buds splitting to let out little white fluffy flowers.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They hung their decorations and finished just as Bruce entered the room, wearing a maroon turtleneck, looking around with a smile. He pulled out a red packet and held it out to Cass, his lips twitching into a tentative smile. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I know it doesn’t mean much,” Bruce started hesitantly, “You can ask me for something anytime, and I’d give it. I thought you might appreciate the gesture, though.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Cass hugged Bruce tightly and tip-toed to peck at Bruce’s chin, accepting the red envelope with a bright smile. “<em>Niu nian kuai le!</em>”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The pun took a moment to process, but it was worth it. Cass giggled at her family’s varying reactions, Dick and Steph high-fiving her while Bruce rolled his eyes, suppressing his own amusement. Jason groaned loudly from where he was just entering the room, carrying a few containers of the finished pineapple tarts. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>They finished a container by the time Duke joined them in the living room, just as Cass took Bruce’s unused red packets and started twisting them into small fish with the help of a stapler. They were just finishing a lopsided set of “firecrackers” when Tim and Damian arrived, Tim holding a paper bag that he tried and failed to hide behind his back. Cass was fairly sure that Damian’s red hoodie used to belong to Tim.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Tim pretended nothing was amidst, but Cass stared pointedly at him until he pulled the bag out with a laugh. “We wanted to give it to you after dinner,” Tim whined. He turned to Damian, holding the bag to him and jerking his head towards Cass. Damian huffed, but still took the bag, refusing eye contact as he quietly passed the bag to her.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The bag had a stack of postcards. Cass pulled out one to inspect and grinned. It was a customised postcard, bold gold lettering saying “Happy 牛 Year!”, “New” replaced with the character for an ox, "<em>niu</em>". The photo above the text showed Batcow, dressed in an improvised red outfit, bright red cloth draped over the cow and held together at the front with glittery yellow knot buttons. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Convincing Batcow to wear that was an experience,” Damian grumbled, “I’m glad to know that the Chinese Zodiac rotates through twelve animals. It’ll be a long while before we attempt that a second time.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Cass pulled both Damian and Tim into a hug. “Thank you, <em>Dai Dai</em>-s.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You’re welcome,” Tim returned warmly, Damian mumbling the phrase after him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They ate dinner together, a rather random mix of everyone’s favourite dishes. Cass poked at Jason until he agreed to be her scribe for the postcards. Duke was fidgeting in his seat. At one point Cass caught his eye and he smiled, a bit too widely for it to be just nothing. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sure enough, Duke left the dining room as dinner wrapped up, returning with his hands behind his back. He walked right up to Cass and held out the small box. “Firecrackers are a bit dangerous, but these still explode,” Duke grinned cheekily. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Cass recognised the tiny party poppers for what they were and dragged Duke towards the yard, everyone else following just a step behind.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There was a bit of chaos when Titus got tangled in the first few streamers of the party poppers, but eventually they were letting loose the streamers at each other, the faint smell of gunpowder quickly whisked away by the cold wind. Dick mixed the streamers with snow and made a colourful snowball, and soon they descended into a snowball fight which only ended when Duke pulled out sparklers for them to mess around under the dimming evening sky.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>At one point, Cass tilted her head at Bruce and pointed to the night sky. “The Birds of Prey are in charge for the night,” Bruce replied, “Babs wishes you a happy new year.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m gonna tell her you finally called her ‘Babs’!” Steph hollered from across the lawn. Somehow, she had managed to dodge snowballs in her cheongsam. Bruce huffed but otherwise ignored the comment.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Cass was content to spend the rest of the night with her family in the living room, playing card games and slowly going through the freshly-baked pineapple tarts. She looked around, at the unprofessional and imperfect paper decorations hanging from the walls, the postcards lying in a heap at one side, waiting to be written on, and the already-empty containers with crumbs at the bottom, and smiled warmly. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You can’t stack the plus-fours! UNO confirmed it!”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Screw UNO, does it look like I care?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Oh, it’s on. Play it, <em>I dare you</em>.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I did a fic similar to this before, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28340034">I'll Teach You</a>!</p>
<p><a href="https://www.redtedart.com/chinese-new-year-crafts-lantern-fairy-lights/">This</a> is an example of the paper lanterns I had in mind, and <a href="https://www.pinterest.com/pin/136022851217254677/">this</a> is an example of the red packet fish!</p>
<p>((I also made a <a href="https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/listentothelittlebird">tumblr</a>, there's nothing on it but, well, I might put "deleted scenes / rejected drafts" of Code Bat there!))</p>
<p>Have a great valentine's day / friendship day!! :D</p></blockquote></div></div>
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